During her ruling against tobacco companies for violating racketeering laws, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler stated, “Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public.” Deceit is the “concealment or misrepresentation of the truth.” Synonyms include: illusion, lie, facade, fiction, falseness and mask. Antonyms include: truth, fact, authenticity, reality, honesty and accuracy. In most cases deception has negative consequences. Certainly, the tobacco companies’ concealment of truth negatively affected millions of people.
However, deception is not always “bad” or harmful—for example, April Fools’ Day jokes or childhood magic tricks. In some cases, deception can actually aid noble causes. Corrie ten Boom and her family deceived Nazi authorities when they hid Jews in their home. Her courage is commemorated at the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel. But, either for good or bad, deception conceals truth.
The experience of having the “wool pulled over our eyes” is universal. Across history and cultures, virtually every, if not all, people groups acknowledge this basic concept of deception. In fact, psychological studies indicate common factors in our susceptibility to being deceived, including age (DePaulo and Jordan 1986), experience (Barnes 1994), and education (deTurck and Miller 1990).
There are four primary means through which we can be deceived:
- Other people
- Our own self
- Circumstances or general appearances
- Spiritual influences
The first means has already been illustrated in the example of the tobacco companies. Other people can conceal truth from us. We are also capable of deceiving ourselves. In a memo to his NBC network staff, Bill Moyers reported he would be cutting back on work due to heart problems, saying: “Call it hubris, denial or just the obsession to return to work, I deceived myself.” Likewise, circumstances or general appearances can trick us. When James Kim, his wife and two children set out on a Thanksgiving holiday trip to Oregon, they didn’t know the tragedy they would encounter. Deceived by appearances, they took what seemed to be a passable short-cut over snow covered mountains. Unfortunately, the family became stranded for more than a week, and James died in his attempt to walk for help.
The first three means of deception are readily understood and accepted by most people. The last means, spiritual influences, is more difficult to see. Obviously, the spiritual realm is invisible and so deception that comes from that dimension is not readily apparent. Atheists or naturalists who do not believe in spiritual causes and effects or spirit beings such as God dismiss the idea of spiritual influences. However, the majority of people on the planet, regardless of religion, believe in the spirit world and the possibility of communicating with beings in this realm. For example, people pray to God or gods, believing there are influences in the spirit world that can act or speak on our behalf—either for good or bad.
As an example, the mother of one of my close friends was going about her day when she began to feel an urgency to visit an elderly acquaintance. She made a mental note to do so the following week. But as the hours passed, the urgency in her spirit grew to a panic, compelling her to drive to the woman’s house that very day. When she arrived she found her friend lying on the ground. The elderly woman had fallen and had been praying for several hours that God would send someone to help her. God communicates with us. So also negative spirits can speak to us (demons). The idea of demons might seem superstitious to rationalistic Westerners. However, if God truly exists, why not other spirit beings? Many people in the world, outside the West, commonly acknowledge the existence of demons.
Dr. Krister Sairsingh, who received his Ph.D from Harvard University, recounts his own encounter with a demonic spirit in his essay, “Christ and Karma: A Hindu’s Quest for the Holy” (see Finding God at Harvard). Born in Trinidad to a devout Hindu family, he describes his experience like this:
Towards the end of my final year of high school, I had a bizarre experience which caused me to question the efficacy of my faith. I was sitting on my bed studying chemistry late at night in preparation for final examinations. I felt a slap on my face as I was thrown upon the bed. I felt as if something was physically strangling me. I could not easily breathe or move. Since I could not speak, I began to repeat in my mind the mantra which was given by my guru. When that did not work, I tried the Gayatri mantra, the most sacred mantra of Hinduism. But that brought no relief.
After this terrifying experience, Dr. Sairsingh began reading about Jesus and was intrigued by Jesus’ claim: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). Eventually, he devoted his life to Jesus and was released from demonic experience and fear.
Jesus acknowledged the existence of demons and because of his divine power was able to command spirits to stop harassing people (Mark 5:1-20). Scripture also describes the phenomena of spirits deceiving people in order to use them to affect events on earth. Revelation, describing the last days, states: “For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world” (16:14). Jesus sometimes metaphorically called teachers who were under the influence of deceptive spirits “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” That is, these teachers became a danger to others because their teaching appeared to be true and harmless–when it wasn’t. That which is false can give the illusion of something beneficial and accurate. People trust false teachers and believe their erroneous teaching because it sounds right at the time.
The concept of false teachers is not a paranoid “Christian fundamentalist” idea. Check out About.com and you can learn tips from Barbara, a journalist and Zen Buddhist in New York, on distinguishing between a false and true Buddhist teacher. She writes, “Beware of teachers who use charisma and are worshipped by their students.” There is nothing superstitious or weird about the idea that teachers or leaders can promote inaccurate (false) information. And, not all false teaching is done with malicious intent or under spiritual influence. Think of James Loewen’s national best-seller Lies My Teacher Told Me.
But regardless of whether a person promotes wrong information out of dubious character, subjection to negative spiritual influences, or innocent ignorance, the outcome is the same. False conclusions cause harm. One look at the history books and all the faulty ideologies that have brought ruin to individuals and nations clearly demonstrate that.
So what practical steps can we take to protect against gullibility? More on that to come.
3 Comments
June 22, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Ha. What a tease of an ending. I look forward to hearing more about your thoughts about deception.
June 23, 2008 at 2:12 am
nice post on deception.
June 28, 2008 at 3:54 pm
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